


Hero decendants and inherited shields

by Kin_of_Norway



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Four continues to agonize over Wild breaking weapons, Gen, I barely proof read this so thats that, I haven't written proper fanfiction in 7 years dont expect too much out of it, So is Aryll and Wind's grandma, Sorry if they're a bit ooc but this is how it ended up, Wild Time and Twilight are mentioned, Wind uses pirate slang like... twice, Yall remember that wind and four are related bc its the same shield theory that went around?, Yea this is that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kin_of_Norway/pseuds/Kin_of_Norway
Summary: Something about Wind's shield is awfully familliar and Four looses his mind over it.AKA: Turns out Twilight and Time aren't the only ones related in their little group of heroesFor the Valentines Gift Exchange on Discord! Hope ya'll enjoy!
Relationships: Four & Wind (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 195





	Hero decendants and inherited shields

Four couldn’t stop looking (sneaking glances, studying, _staring_ ) at Wind’s shield who was hanging oh so innocently on the younger hero’s back. 

He hadn’t been paying too close attention to his traveling companions’ weapons at the start of their adventure, but he’d decided to look out for damage and wear after one nasty surprise when a sword had broken mid-battle (cough Wild cough), deciding it was better to know _beforehand_ of a battle that a weapon would be broken rather than mid swing against a rather nasty lizalfos. 

It was while turning a calculating look at the different swords and shields that the others wielded when he’d actually noticed Wind’s shield. Or rather, the design of the shield. It was only the feeling of his own hand around the shield handle of his own shield that confirmed that, yes, Wind did not actually have Four’s shield on his back. The design was just so eerily similar to his own shield, it tricked his mind for a good five seconds. 

It was probably nothing, maybe it even was a little tribute. Between the nine of them, there was legends and myths passed down, so it wasn’t out of the question that the sailor’s shield was merely a nod to Four’s own, designed to look like his, the crafter simply having taken inspiration from whatever picture or mural that depicted the Hero of the Four Sword. 

With that, the smallest hero pushed all thoughts of Wind’s shield out of his mind. Atleast, for a few days, until Four found himself looking at the shield again, and thus the cycle continued.

* * *

It was days later after a group of bokoblins and moblins had come upon the heroes (Four fondly recalls that Wind had yelled ‘’Come get it, ye blundering bunch of shark meat!’’ at the enemies before charging at them) when the hero in question approached him, shield in hand. Four was taking care of one of Wild’s weapons, a traveler’s sword, when he heard footsteps coming towards him and looked up.

‘’Hey Four? I think my shield handle is a bit loose, could you take a look at it for me?’’ the younger asked.

Four nodded, and put away the sword. ‘’Sure thing, better to fix it now than when its completely broken off,’’ he said, spotting Twilight patting a grumbling Wild on the shoulder in the corner of his eye at his remark. 

Wind beamed and sat down next to him, handing the shield over. Four let his eyes wander over the design of the shield, afterall, he’d only gotten a chance to study it from afar, and never this up close. He hummed quietly to himself, whoever made the shield truly had an attention to detail, as it really did look identical to his own. 

‘’Something wrong?’’ Wind suddenly asked, and it shook Four out of his musings long enough to remember the loose shield handle was not, in fact, on the side of the shield he was currently looking at. He quickly shook his head.

‘’No, just looking at the imagery,’’ he answered, and quickly turned the shield over. Wind seemed satisfied with the explanation and seemed content just to watch Four work. 

As he nudged the handle and - yep that was definitely loose, thank the goddesses Wind had come to him about it - gathered his tools to repair the damage, Four finally found his curiosity getting the better of himself.

‘’Say, Wind,’’ he began, getting the younger hero’s attention. ‘’Where did you get this shield? Do you know who made it?’’ As he spoke, he found himself looking up from the shield to watch the younger hero as his face scrunched up in thought. It was always interesting to watch the little sailor’s face, as he was always so expressive in everything he did. Four found it quite endearing how Wind always seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve, or, err… face.

‘’Grandma was the one who gave it to me, when I set out to save Aryll,’’ Wind began and Four nodded along. All of them had heard Wind talk about his younger sister and grandma at some point, and Four found himself wanting to meet them himself more and more each time the sailor spoke of them. 

‘’It's been hanging up on the wall in our house for as long as I can remember though, so I don’t know who made it. Grandma says it’s a family heirloom, and she always said it was supposedly used by the Hero himself!’’ Wind explained, getting more and more excited as he spoke. Four was working on fastening the handle, but hummed to let Wind know he was listening. 

‘’I always thought that it meant that the Hero of Time had used the shield, but I asked Time about it and he doesn’t recognize it so I guess not,’’ Wind continued. Four supposed that made sense, after the whole mess of introductions they had, Wind had been star-struck around Time, explaining that the Hero of Time was a Big Deal, so it wasn’t a leap for Wind to have assumed the shield belonged to Time at some point. 

Then Wind grinned wide, leaning forward on his arms where he sat cross-legged. ‘’It would have been really cool if it were true though! Because if it really did belong to a hero, then he must have settled down and had a family for it to become a family heirloom passed down the generations, right? Imagine that! Me, a hero’s descendant!’’ Wind exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide, and Four felt his entire being just _stop._

‘’I mean it isn’t the only way probably, the hero could have sold it or given it away or something but-’’ Wind seemed to continue on, but Four found himself unable to focus because _what if?_

Now the timeline was a mess, if it even still existed at this point. But Wind had made it very clear that Time had been the hero before him, and Time had admitted to hearing old and faded tales that could be from Four’s adventures, which puts Four very conveniently before Wind in the timeline. 

‘’...’’

The matching shields could just be a coincidence. Some artist taking inspiration from tales of old. But it was still one hell of a coincidence that Wind, a hero after him, had a shield that looked like Four’s. Wind even admitted that it might have belonged to a hero before him!

‘’-ur?’’

The idea was insane. Four would have had to settled down and had a family of his own for it to work. That was a weird thought. Settle down. Heroes don’t just settle down. They do their thing, and then disappear into mystery. Except… Time had done it. He’d married Malon and found a home at Lon Lon Ranch. If he could do it, why couldn’t Four?

‘’He-’’ ‘’-our?’’

Still it was a stretch. A very long one at that. All he had to go off of was the similarities in two shields, and the apparent history behind Wind’s copy. But then again, what was he going to do after all his adventures are over? Four knew he could have a future as a proper smith if he wanted to. Making swords and armour, horseshoes and nails. It would be a stable life at least. He could settle down if he just wanted. He could-

‘’Four! Wind to Four! Hellooooooooo??’’ Four blinked, and looked up. Wind was standing up in front of him, waving a hand over his face, head tilted to the side. The sailor huffed a laugh and placed his hands on his hips.

‘’Welcome back, I was wondering if you’d ever return back down to earth,’’ Wind remarked cheekily. 

Four shook his head, smiling apologetically. ‘’Sorry, guess I got lost in my own thoughts,’’ he offered, and Wind nodded satisfied with that, and promptly sat back down beside him. Four returned his gaze to the shield handle, tugging at it. It didn’t feel loose anymore, and he ran his fingers over it satisfied. He frowned as he felt a small grove in the metal under his fingertips, turning the shield this way and that in order to get a closer look. Kind of… looked like a marking of sorts?

‘’What were you thinking so deeply about anyways?’’ asked Wind suddenly, making Four look up from the examination of the handle. The smallest hero paused, wondering if he should tell the small sailor. Deciding it wouldn’t really do any harm, he set Wind’s shield down, and grabbing his own, setting them side by side, leaving the twin markings fully exposed. Four sat back on his heels, letting Wind shuffle closer to look at them.

‘’Just about how much your shield looks like mine,’’ Four answered, looking over the two. It had been unnerving to see Wind’s shield on its own, knowing what his own looked like, but side by side really made it clear how alike they were.

‘’Blimey, now that’s freaky,’’ muttered Wind, eyes darting between the shields in an effort to discern any differences. Four nodded in assessment.

‘’Yeah, I almost thought you had taken my shield when I noticed it,’’ Four said, at which Wind snickered. 

‘’Honestly, if I had, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed!’’ the young hero laughed, and went to pick up Four’s shield. He put it on his shield arm and tested the weight of it, before twirling around to face Four with an astonished look on his face. ‘’It even weighs the same!’’ he exclaimed.

‘’Yeah,’’ Four replied, picking up Wind’s shield again to look at the handle. ‘’The only real difference I can make out is that yours have some sort of marking on the handle, which mine doesn’t-’’ Four cut himself off, because his shield handle _did have a marking._ He fumbled with the shield as he recalled how, in one of his adventures, the handle had broken and he'd been forced to make a new one. And, like all good smiths did on their own work, had made an engraving on the handle, just because he could. 

Four took a deep breath, turned the shield just so, and peered closer at the handle to where the marking on his own handle was. 

There. A tiny little triforce. Almost invisible unless you knew where to look. 

It was his shield. Wind’s shield was Four’s shield. Wind’s shield, which was a family heirloom and supposedly used by a hero, _was his shield._

‘’Four? You okay?’’

Four blinked as he processed that little fact, and looked up at Wind, who was standing there _(holding Four’s shield which would eventually become Wind’s)_ looking at him concerned.

Four opened his mouth. Closed it. Then tried again.

‘’It’s mine,’’ he said, as if in a daze. Wind’s concerned expression shifted to a confused one. Four looked him straight in the eye.

‘’Your shield, it used to be mine,’’ he started to explain, still whirling from the revelation himself. He almost started to laugh when he saw how Wind’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, completely disappearing under the younger’s bangs, but Four bit his cheek to stop it and continued on.

‘’I’d forgotten about it, but at some point the handle on my shield had broken, and I had to fix it. I decided to be a bit experimental and put a triforce marking on it, which, your shield also has, in the exact same place,’’ Four said, looking down at the handle. 

‘’So, the hero that was said to have used my shield-’’

‘’-was me, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.’’

For a few moments they just stared at each other. Four studied the way the little sailor mulled those facts over, the way his face changed as he thought about what had just been discovered. Eventually he nodded to himself, expression uncategorically serious as he locked eyes with Four. The Hero of the Four Sword wasn’t quite sure what he expected but-

‘’Grandpa.’’

_-it was not that!_

Four choked on air, and started to sputter as Wind cackled with glee. The sailor put Four’s shield he had been holding on the ground, and then practically collapsed onto Four, hugging the older hero as he wheezed into Four’s shoulder. 

‘’Oh my Goddesses, your face!’’ Wind laughed, his whole body shaking with mirth. Four finally managed to breathe normally again and patted Wind on the back with his hands, and chuckled.

Eventually they let go of each other, matching smiles as they sat down beside one another. Wind was still laughing silently to himself. Four looked down at the two shields that had started the whole thing and smiled to himself.

‘’No but for real though, if my shield was yours, and it was passed down as a family heirloom, doesn’t that make you like,’’ Wind scrunched up his face. ‘’my great great times many grandpa?’’ Four snorted, and looked over at the younger hero.

‘’I guess? I mean I could be wrong about the marking, but it’s too similar so I doubt it,’’ he answered, then frowned a bit. ‘’I just never thought I’d settle down I guess. Never really thought about having a family. But maybe, eventually I do.’’ Four turned his head to look at the younger boy, a hero in his own time. ‘’And then, somewhere along the line, you’re born, and inherit my shield.’’

Wind was looking at him with big eyes, mouth slightly agape. He shuffled closer to Four, eyes searching, before he eventually grinned wide.

‘’And? Am I a good great great times many grandkid?’’ 

Four smiled wide, and ruffled Wind’s _(his descendant’s)_ hair.

‘’Good? Kiddo, you’re the best.’’

* * *

_‘’Oh Hylia! Now you_ have _to meet Grandma and Aryll!’’_


End file.
